Sometimes the elements in the `Avoid patterns like:` list are quoted text it should avoid, sometimes they're just descriptions of things to avoid. But they are "quoted" in both cases which is a bit confusing. Maybe not to an AI though.

I do look forward to being an older person because at a certain age I do feel society gives you carte blanche to talk to anybody.

I mean it is true to say that most people in the West now use a car for transport, and walking has become more of a leisure pursuit (rebranded as "hiking") rather than a practical necessity.

My car is typically used twice a week and (like many others) I mostly ride my bike or walk. I'm not special at all and I certainly use the car, but it has not replaced walking.

I don't think either of us disagree though that the number of miles of non-leisure journeys walked per capita is significantly less in 2026 than it was in 1926 or 1826 though?

I always found it pretty remarkable in David Copperfield when Dickens recounts regular walks between London and Canterbury, which he apparently did make in real life

That's a good example, I learned about the Pilgrim's Way between London and Canterbury. It's about 88km, which someone walked recently in 6 days. In the Canterbury tales, someone rides a horse and does it in 2 days. By train it's an hour and a half, and by plane is 6 minutes.

You're right, "ape-walking" is a rare thing, only a small group of people are motivated enough to walk that distance - for religious, athletic, or recreational purpose. I think this does apply to "ape-coding", it's going to be a niche interest for much fewer people than today.

Hence why one persons behavior is called an anecdote.

It's not sarcasm, it's satire.

That's the right word, thanks.

Self evidently not the case, look at people absolutely falling over themselves to pay hundreds for seats at West End/Broadway shows just to see the spectacle of live human performance.

The title I posted with was the title when I posted it. They changed it since.

I don't doubt that. If you inferred criticism, apologies. Do suggest a wording that would avoid that. Thanks.

I don't judge content for being AI written, I judge it for the content itself (just like with code).

However I do find the standard out-of-the-box style very grating. Call it faux-chummy linkedin corporate workslop style.

Why don't people give the llm a steer on style? Either based on your personal style or at least on a writer whose style you admire. That should be easier.

Because they think this is good writing. You can’t correct what you don’t have taste for. Most software engineers think that reading books means reading NYT non-fiction bestsellers.

While I agree with:

> Because they think this is good writing. You can’t correct what you don’t have taste for.

I have to disagree about:

> Most software engineers think that reading books means reading NYT non-fiction bestsellers.

There's a lot of scifi and fantasy in nerd circles, too. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Vernor Vinge, Charlie Stross, Iain M Banks, Arthur C Clarke, and so on.

But simply enjoying good writing is not enough to fully get what makes writing good. Even writing is not itself enough to get such a taste: thinking of Arthur C Clarke, I've just finished 3001, and at the end Clarke gives thanks to his editors, noting his own experience as an editor meant he held a higher regard for editors than many writers seemed to. Stross has, likewise, blogged about how writing a manuscript is only the first half of writing a book, because then you need to edit the thing.

My flow is to craft the content of the article in LLM speak, and then add to context a few of my human-written blog posts, and ask it to match my writing style. Made it to #1 on HN without a single callout for “LLM speak”!

So are we basically saying that LLMs work most effectively on codebases that exhibit good quality coding practices, but are not themselves particularly good at creating such quality code themselves, since they were trained on all the code that exists.

I don't know what conclusion to draw from that. Maybe that there's no such thing as a free lunch, after all.

The conclusion I draw is that LLMs need a human expert with some taste and agency to empower/supervise them. Just like human dev teams do.

This is a deranged take. Lots of slurs end in "er" because they describe someone who does something - for example, a wanker, one who wanks. Or a tosser, one who tosses. Or a clanker, one who clanks.

The fact that the N word doesn't even follow this pattern tells you it's a totally unrelated slur.

It's less of a deranged take when you have the additional context of a bunch of people on tiktok/etc promoting this slur by acting out 1950s themes skits where they kick "clankers" out of their dinner or similar obvious allusions to traditional racism.

Anyway, it's not really a big deal. Sacred cows are and should always be permissible to joke about.

I drive a 2022 EV which has physical buttons for all the things you mention so you're good for a while